"My Family: The Memoir" by David Baddiel - audiobook review

David Baddiel is incredibly good company in this audiobook. It made me laugh and cry. I felt like I was missing out by not having the physical book because it is full of photos of his family and his mum's golf memorabilia, but I love the way that Baddiel stops reading at these moments and casually and unscriptedly describes the image, like a rambling and lovingly composed HTML alt attribute. He invited me to go and look at the images in a bookshop, which I might well do.

This is the book version of his My Family: Not the Sitcom theatre show. It's mostly about his parents, Sarah and Colin Baddiel, a bit about his brothers, Ivan and Dan. Sarah had a long-running affair with a man called David White, a pipe-smoking golfing enthusiast and memorabilia dealer. Colin seemed not to notice or care. Both of them were neglectful by today's parenting standards, but, as Nora Ephron would say, they provide good copy. Sarah was shameless in the broadcasting of her sexuality ("My clitoris is on fire!"). David admits he spent much of his 30s in therapy. Sarah died 7 years before her husband, who had dementia and Pick's disease, which exaggerated his worst qualities of rudeness and swearing - often hilariously.

I've always liked David Baddiel. He played an important part in the formation of my sense of humour via The Mary Whitehouse Experience and Fantasy Football League with Frank Skinner. I remember that my brother, Gregory, read his first novel, Time for Bed, which seems to be the thinly fictionalized version of this memoir. I admire his thoughtfulness and honesty. He admits in this book that he has to tell the truth and lacks the common Jewish trait of shame, which leads to some funny anecdotes about his life as a celebrity.

I zoomed through this book in a few days, often smiling and laughing as I listened on my daily walks around the estate. It's touching and moving - particularly towards the end when he describes the death of both his parents and a beloved cat. But some of the biggest laughs come in these dark times. May you live a long life. What a great hang!

"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" by Douglas Adams - book review

This is the second book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. It's more of the same space-based comedy with the same characters and a journeying plot. Adams remains at his best when domesticating the alien. It's full of amusing lines - my favourite being: "It has been said that Vogons are not above a little bribery and corruption in the same way that the sea is not above the clouds". I think my view is tinged by knowing how hard Adams found it to write these books to a deadline. It does feel like some of the chapters are mailed in / reeled off, and that there's no overall direction; just a series of scenes with some funny bits. But it is worth it for the funny bits.

"An Italian Education" by Tim Parks - book review

I first read this book in March and April 2022. I wanted to re-read parts of it that mentioned Pescara, which is where we're going on holiday this August. I searched through the book on Kindle and bookmarked all the chapters that mentioned Pescara, re-read them all, and then read continuously from "Il cambio della guardia" to the end (about 100 pages), which describes Tim Parks's visit with his daughter Stefi and son Michele in June 1994.

I really love Tim Parks's non-fiction. This follows on from Italian Neighbours and focuses on the education of his two children (and the imminent arrival of a third). It's about moving to a newly built home an a housing co-operative and his new neighbours there. But, as I said, I was re-reading it for the Pescara mentions, which come early in the book because that's where his in-laws live and where his wife, Rita, is from.

There's nothing particularly remarkable about Pescara as a holiday destination. Sun, sand, sea, Italians at the beach. But Parks make it special and in his inimitable way turns the particular into the whole, somehow giving you a taste of Italian culture and its people. And he does so with such affection and commitment.

A delight to revisit, even if I finished it in the middle of a hot night in May, unable to sleep.